


Of First Dates, Full Moons and Shaking Smiles

by Random_ag



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: BUT IT WILL UPDATE, Dating, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Maybe - Freeform, Romance, and niamhs never been on a date before, bc im a snail when it comes to multichapters, but thats for waaay later, it will update Very. VERY SLOWLY, its just gonna be chapter after chapter of these dumbasses being sweet n in love, kim is DYING, possibly, there might also be lime scenes, they love each other brad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-01-01 03:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18327719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag





	1. God give me the strength not to faint

That felt unreal. A bottle no bigger than the palm of his hand, stuck under the sink since only God knew when, found while looking for a new bottle of shampoo. Kim held it in silence as he sat on the bathroom floor, dumbfounded.

His fingers ghosted unsurely over the top. He bit his lower lip, slowly opening it.

 

A strong sea-like scent hit his nose; he inhaled a long breath, his lungs filling with a tickling sensation that set his body aflame.

 

He swallowed, immediately sealing the glass container. Maybe he feared the essence would evaporate, leaving him with just some damp old seashells wrapped in blue tulle inside a bottle with an inspiring label, and its supposed power would have gone with it.

He almost felt like something was a little different, inside of him. He brushed a fingertip on the black letters spelling ‘Courage’ on the duck tape.

 

It had been nice.

 

He should have changed the hiding place now.

 

Or… He could have…

 

Kim bit his tongue slightly, thinking everything through. It was a horrible idea, and that was without question. But to its credit, he had just gotten some of one of his strongest, most reckless emotions back into his system, encouraging him with a heavily Irish accented voice to take a shot.

So, maybe.

 

Just maybe.

 

He could have tried, this time.

 

Kim reemerged from his thoughts only when he found it incredibly hard to stitch Charley’s arm to his torso without the needle of his sewing machine moving. A half-shout of his name also helped getting him back on track.

He turned, eyes wide and puzzled, to see Shawn squatting right beside him. He looked extremely disgruntled.

“What?” he asked absent-mindedly.

“I’ve been tryin’ to talk t’ ya for the past ten minutes!” his friend replied, obviously pissed, “Did ye wad yer ears with cotton or somethin’?”

“No, I’ve just been thinking.”

“Well, can ya think a little quieter and listen ta me fer a second? Ya know-”

“Absolutely not.” the darker man replied, trying to get his machine’s plug back from the clutches of the dastardly Irish fiend, “I need to concentrate or I might just chicken out and leave this idea of mine an idea.”

“YA DON’T NEED TO CONCENTRATE MORE! YE DIDN’T EVEN SEE NIAMH PASS BY!” Shawn complained as he shot up to his feet, almost hitting the other and nearly letting the damn piece of plastic-coated elecricity conductor that allowed to operate an engine capable of being used to sew fall to the ground in the process.

 

Kim stared bewildered at his friend for a moment. She’d passed? Of course she did, that was a rethoric question, she always went on a morning round to make sure everything was good, but… She’d passed?

 

“Good.” he concluded, his tone a mix of contentment and surprise in himself.

The Irishman returned his gaze in disbelief.

“Are ya feckin’ possessed? What the hell were you thinking about?”

“Something that is none of your business.”

“Yes it is!”

“Please put the plug back where it was.”

“And then ya tell me what’s up in that head a’ yours?”

 

Charley faced him with his visage devoid of all features (because they hadn’t been painted yet), the not completely sewn arm limping almost sadly as a pair of dark fingers tried to hold it up in a respectable manner.

“Shut yer trap an’ go back t’ werk, ya peeza’ shet.” he said in a ridiculously stupid voice.

Shawn lowered his guard a little and raised an eyebrow as he found himself snickering: “What was that s’pposed to be?”

“A very bad Irish accent.” his friend replied with a smile, “Now, the plug.”

“Aw, come on!”

“Charley’s arm won’t get sewn by itself.”

“How ‘bout a hint?”

“Put it back.”

 

With a pout, the electric current was allowed to safely start powering the sewing machine once more, which, operated by hands definitely less pale than the ones that restored its powersource, swiftly returned to fixing the Butcher Gang leader’s limp.

“At least ya could have told yer friend somethin’, couldn’t ya… Nah, gotta play Mr Mysterious, o’ course, why not…” grumbled Shawn, reluctantly making his way back to his seat.

“I bet you can wait.” Kim’s voice reached him, making his ears perk up, “You’ll see later.”

The obnoxious Irishman immediately went back on his tracks and plopped his head on top of his friend’s.

“Later when?” he asked with the glee and anticipation of a small child.

Kim ignored him as hard as he could, moving on to stuff an Alice with cotton: “Later when you’ve painted some straight smiles on those dolls.”

“Can they be gay smiles?”

“Shawn.”

“How ‘bout bi smiles? Pan smiles? Demi? Ace? Aro? Queer? Want Edgar to have a lovely lil’ trans smile?”

“Shawn, we may be pals but God be my witness I will find a way to shove one whole bobbin up your nose if you don’t go and do your job.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Ok, Grosso!” Flynn began as he stomped into the break room with his friend, “I’ve been the best boy there is and waited the whole morning for ya! Now, ya either tell me what the hell ye-”

“In a minute.” Kim hushed him, forcibly shoving him in a free seat beside a very confused Johnny without even looking at him or listening to his complaining. His dark eyes were up and looking in the direction completely opposite from the pale man beside him.

 

 _Ok. Don’t fuck it up,_  he thought to himself, sucking in all of the air his lungs could contain through gritted teeth. He had to do it. He had to. He had shoved courage back into his system, and by all those who lived in the skies above him was he going to go use it.

His legs and lip trembled with every step, but to his own surpirise and merit he managed not to fall unconcious on the floor on the way there, and he did not immediately faint as his voice left his mouth in a shaky: “Ma’am?”

Niamh turned to him smiling, perfectly oblivious to his anxiety: “What?”

 

“I, uh, I wanted t-to, ask you something?”

 

Her brows knitted in a matter of milliseconds, already prepared to deliver a healthy dose of asskicking to a fool: “The fock did Shawn do this time?”

 

“No, no, it has nothing to do with him! It’s just…”

 

_Don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up-_

 

“I, I just wanted to ask you out. O-on a date.”

 

It was a bit unexpected how wide her eyes became. The awkward silence was barely any more nerve-wrecking than usual, but still, he could have done wonderfully without it.

 

“Like a romantic one?” she blurted out.

“I- Well, t-that was the idea…”

 

It was like that information was too much for her to process easily. She blinked a couple of times - her blue eyes fluttering close and then back open felt at the same time terribly slow and scary quick - as if to help her brain digest the toymaker’s words.

If he’d listened closely, he would have probably heard the sound old computers make when starting up.

 

“Ok!”

 

He returned to reality with a slight jump: “Hm?!”

 

“Yeah, let’s go on a date!” Niamh repeated. She had a beautiful smirk almost reaching her ears. “Sure! Why not!”

 

The part of Kim’s mind that had been a nervous wreck for the past two minutes let out a yell that made it sound like a pterodactyl who had just had the horrible experience of stubbing his toe against a mahogany dresser. Another part was hyperventilating, and his remaining brain cells were trying their very best to do something despite clearly being to few and too panicking.

One last tardive word snuck out of the Irish woman’s pale lips, catching him by surprise like a back-stabbing spy.

 

“Where?”

 

He stared at her radiant face wishing he could melt.

 

Where what? The date? She probably meant that, right? The toymaker gulped to help himself out of his astonishment and into a clearer mind.

 

“I didn’t… Really plan that, I… I-I wasn’t really sure I’d get this far, honestly…”

 

_What the hell doN’T TELL HER THAT! She’ll deck you! And you’ll deserv-_

 

“Ah, ‘ts good!” Niamh’s almost nervous chuckle made him feel slightly more at ease, “I didn’t really plan t’ get ask’d on date t’day either! We’re sorta in the same boat. Or, similar boats, at least.”

Her smile really did lit her cheeks up.

 

Kim could have just stared at her for hours without getting the least bit tired.

 

“… Have… Have you ever been to a pub called Shamrock ’n’ Roll?”

“Hm, nope. Never heard of it.”

“It’s very nice. We could go there, if you want… They make some good salmon-”

“I’m sold.”

“Oh! Oh, o-ok! Uh-”

“Do we improvise a when, too?”

“W-Well, is… Is there a day your shift finishes earlier?”

“Thursday, I think. At 6:30 pm. What about yours?”

“Mine ends at 6:15…”

“Ah, fock.”

“No, no, it’s fine!”

“No it’s not, yer gonna hav’ t’ wait fifteen minutes!”

“It’s good, I swear! I’d, well, I’d probably die on the spot if I didn’t have some time to, you know, think everything through, before… We… Actually… Have… A date…”

 

_WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT. WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT TO HER FACE, YOU ABSOLUTELY DISGRACEFUL CHILD OF GOD. YOU FUCKING FOOL._

 

“Hm. Reasonable.”

 

Had he had some more guts and no fear of repercussions whatsoever, Kim would have kissed her right there and then. Instead, since he was but a bundle of feelings fueled by anxiety, he just smiled shily: “So it’s ok if I… If I wait for you at the exit? This Thursday, if, if you’re free?”

May the earth swallow him up if he lied, but Niamh really did glow of a pale light when she answered: “Of course!” with the loveliest grin he’d ever had the chance to see.

 

Maybe they told each other something after that; he just felt his legs moving at one point and then the chair came in his fied of vision. Kim sat down between a speechless Shawn and an enthusiastic Johnny, his emotions having a turf war on his brain as a horrible sensation ran around his entire body tirelessly screaming into his ears to remind him what he had just done.

 

The organist held his friend’s shoulder in awe: “You did it!” he exclaimed, “Holy shit, you seriously did it!”

“I have made a grave mistake.” was the shaky response.

“You asked her out! Finally!”

“I’m going to die before Thursday comes around.”

“Nuh-huh, sir, you promised your lady a date!”

“I’ll leave her a post-it, I’m sure she’ll understand-“

“Like hell ye’ll die!” the Irishman joined in, “Yer gonna sweep her off her damn feet!”

“My arms will break-”

“No they won’t!”

 

The two excited matchmakers were too busy congratulating and shaking their friend (while also quietly spreading the word through the tables that the shy mess of a man had finally conquered his Everest) to notice just how fast Niamh, after a couple of quiet seconds, had bolted out of the room towards the recording booth on the second floor, slamming the door wide open and yelling loud enough to startle the voice actress about to rehearse:

 

“SUSIE! WHAT THE  _FOCK_ DO YE DO ON A DATE!?”


	2. The First Time, or at least the Aftermath

Fifteen minutes.

He had fifteen minutes to get some order in his head and let his brain scream horribly as he swung back and forth between dissociation and reality while standing by the exit door.

 

Johnny and Shawn weren’t planned, expected nor welcomed.

 

“Please go home.” Kim gently ordered, cursing them in his mind for wasting five precious minutes.

“Ya’d like that, wouldn’t ya?” the Irishman replied with a smirk, “So ya can just run away without anyone noticing and escape yer date, eh?”

“I’m not going to-”

“We know, we know,” the organist assured him with a smile, giving his other pal a friendly nudge, “We’re just here to help you spend the time and relax while you wait for your future wife to finish her shift.”

 

The toy maker turned to him with eyes that promised to jump out of his sockets.

 

“She’s- I’m not- It’s our first date!” he muttered furiously as his face grew darker and darker by the second.

“So what? You’re clearly meant to be!”

“We haven’t even gone out yet, you philomaniac-”

“But you’ve heard how she agreed to this! She was so enthusiastic! So excited!”

“We’re not going to marry!”

“How can you be sure?”

“I- It’s just improbable!”

“But it could happen!”

“Oh, sweet Pwyll prince of Dyved-”

“I can hear the wedding bells already~”

“If you two don’t go away I will defenestrate myself right here and now.”

“Don’t be so melodra-”

 

In a turn of events that not even Laocoon or Tyresia could have predicted, Shawn grabbed Johnny by the shoulder and began dragging him away instead of fueling his arguments.

 

“You heard the loverboy,” he even said, hushing the musician’s protests, “If we want him to get his lass we gotta let him go on his own. But!” he immediately added, childishly poking Kim’s cheek with his index finger, “Ya better tell us what happens tomorrow! Every detail!”

“I’m under no contractual obbligation for that!” Kim protested.

 

The Irishman laughed before leaving to join Willy in their car, Johnny safely tucked in a headlock in order to keep him in check: “Maybe so, but yer under friendship obligation! Break a leg tonight!”

 

The darker man waved back at him, smiling, a little bit relieved.

Said feeling sunk deep under his feet merely a second after as he spaced out.

 

Boy, he sure was  _dying_.

 

Dread seeped deep into his bones as he felt the seconds pass on mercilessly. If he’d asked nicely, would time have stopped for a while? Maybe even turn backwards just a little before the inevitable moment when the feeble string of his life would have been cut to pieces by Atrope’s rusting scissors of fate?

 

He should have left.

 

If she’d set foot in a mile radius of his current position, he would have exploded.

 

He had to gently tell her he couldn’t do it.

Not now.

Not ever.

 

Sorry. Honestly desolated. It’s impossible. Absolutely inconcievable on this specific planet in this specific galaxy of this specific universe, in these particular space-time coordinates. You deserve better than this. Better than me. Better than someone who asks you out and then eats his own words. I’ll tell her that, she’ll break my spine in half with a glare as if it was a cheap toothpick and hate me forever, I’ll deserve it and it will be fine.

 

 _Aye, calm yer pants, ya big scaredy cat,_  resonated a strongly accented voice in his mind.  _Ye can do this! Stop waerrying! Trust me, yer gonna knock her socks off, and she’s gonna lov’ it._

 

Are you sure?, he asked his own courage (only briefly taking time and effort to consider how not quite healthy talking to emotions as if they were people was).

 

_A hundred percent, lad. Now take a good, deep breath and calm yer arse down._

 

He sucked the longest breath he could take through gritted teeth, paying special attention to how his lungs filled to the brim and pushed his chest forward before letting them deflate slowly. It seemed to help, distracting him.

How funny, he thought with a soft giggle to himself. He’d swear he’d heard the voice that still echoed a little in his head somewhere before.

It reminded him a lot of someone else’s voice.

Actually, it was identical to-

Niamh was coming.

 

Niamh was walking towards him, in a pleated skirt and a short-sleeved blouse, and Kim’s brain was too stunned by how late it had noticed her to even begin panicking properly.

 

She looked up into his eyes with her own pretty blue ones, wide with concern instead of being angry slits: “Am I late?” she asked.

 

And Kim, whose careful filters and shields to control, hide, compress all emotion which he had scrupulously installed over the years where currently disabled, immediatey responded: “You’re breath-taking.”

 

Then his neurotic system began working again, and he realized what he’d said.

 

“I mean, more- more than, usual, that is.” he quickly added, turning several shades darker in the span of a millisecond and almost throwing his eyeballs away from her figure. They ended up against a ticking clock that informed him it was around half past seven. “A- And, you’re… You’re right on time, too.”

Niamh followed his stare. “Oh!” she exclaimed, smiling, “Oh, good. I was worried I made ya wait even more. Also thanks! Yer slightly more gorgeous than ye usually are, too.”

 

His liver jumped into his throat, fueled by a sudden spark of delight, begging to be laid in the hands of the woman before whom he was standing. He gulped it back down with shy embarassment, figuring spitting a vital organ at your date’s feet wouldn’t have been a good thing for either of them.

 

“T… Thank you.” he murmured. He cleared his throat a second, hoping his voice wouldn’t tremble like a leaf in the wind, and offered her his arm so she could cling to it with hers: “Should- should we go?”

The way her plump forearm pressed to his skin felt so casually sweet, as if they’d done that hundreds of times before.

They left the Studios, and walked together as the sky darkened.

 

For a while neither said a word. 

 

“I might need ta warn ya, if ye feel yer arm vibrating ’s just me ghost slowly leaving me body to slump motionless to the ground for the nervousness.”

Now  _that_  is what one would call an ice breaker.

 

“Oh, well, it’s, it’s fine actually. I mean, my soul left my body fifteen minutes ago, I don’t think it’s gonna come back anytime soon at this point.”

And  _that_  is the only good response it could have recieved.

 

They snorted at their own words, stiff bodies softening with giggles.

 

“By the time we’ll get there this’ll be a date between a ghost an’ a corpse!”

 

“Apparently. I’m not sure if they serve supernatural creatures, though.”

 

“If they don’t I’ll just push off their glasses like an unruly cat.”

 

“Because nobody messes with the Fae folks?”

 

“Hell yeah, they don’t!”

 

Maybe it was going to be better than he’d expected.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“So…” Shawn began as he carefully painted Alice’s lips, “Slept well?”

 

From the other working station came an enthusiastic hum.

 

“Say, did ya see the moon yesterday night?” the Irishman continued, well aware the previous night had been dark because of the clouds veiling the stars.

“Beautiful!” Kim exclaimed, “Absolutely beautiful! Shining bright as day!”

 

“Oh, really?”

“Hm-hm!”

“Was it real big?”

“Yes!”

“And round?”

“Oh God, yes! She was… She was smiling so wide! And she… Oh, she has this little wheeze when she giggles, and she just… Dear goodness, Shawn, you should  _see_  her, how she gets brighter instead of blushing…”

 

Shawn had long left his seat by the time the darker man had hidden his large trembling smile in his hands, overwhelmed by the sheer giddiness even thinking about the previous evening filled him with. The Irish toy maker gently plastered his palms on his pal’s shoulders, lowering his head while already savouring a lovestruck, detailed recounting of freshly passed dating events -

 

_And then Johnny’s voice hit his temple in a most vile act of high treachery._

 

“Oh, Kim~! You’re wanted upstairs for the rotoscope!” the organist had the nerve to call with his most musical voice.

 

Kim rose to his feet so fast he straight up punted Shawn’s jaw into his upper row of teeth: without even apologizing he scrambled up to the stairs, unbearably restless. The musician shot a mischievous glare at his bitter Irish chum (who was already planning how to shove Johnny’s elbows all the way into his kidneys) as he got up to the dancer’s pace in order to reach him and slow him down.

 

“Now, now, Kim!” he assured him as he patted his back and held his arm to keep him from running too far ahead, “No need to rush! We have more than enough time to get up there. I took the liberty of calling you in a bit earlier than planned so that, you know, we might get a little…  _time_  to talk.”

 

Immediately - for he was far from a cretin, a fool, an imbecile, a complete buffoon with no knwledge of how this romantic philomaniacal fancy-piano-playing man’s brain’s machinations worked - Kim threw his legs forward as if they were to get detached from his hip in an attempt to run away, his cheeks coloring of a hundred shades darker than usual.

It all proved useless as thin fingers held him back playfully.

 

“Come now, No Bones lover-boy! Forget the shame, spill the beans, the tea, the worms, the coffee!”

 

Oh, it was a  _pain_  to get the words out of him. He just kept hiding his carnelian face in his hands every three whispered sentences, turning his back on the organist in an attempt to escape him. But his friend was more than tenacious enough to be willing to deal with it all, and painfully slowly managed to piece together the embarassed and absolutely smitten report of a nice, ordinary dinner at a pub. There was just one last piece of information that Johnny just couldn’t seem to pry from the other’s lips, a litte sentence the mere thought of which was able to turn the dancer into a bundle of disarticulated noises and maddened oxblood blushing.

 

It took some long, exhausting minutes of carefully decoding soft muffled squeaks filtered thorugh fingers, but the final revelation was worth it.

Johnny squished Kim’s crimson face between his own hands: “Oh my GOD! YOU  _MADMAN!_ ” he yelled in a fit of euphoria as he drove the other man in a circular sort of prance, soon followed by the other as they laughed excitedly like two thieves drunk off of the adrenaline of a successful bank robbery.

 

 “AHA!  _NOW_  we’re getting somewhere! A kiss! You got yourself a whole, umprompted kiss! Made in O’Flannel! On your cheek nonetheless! Wait, wait- ! How was it?”

 

The way Kim hid his eyes with his forearms and grinned as his skin grew several shades of maroon darker said it all.  

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Susie knocked on Niamh’s open door wearing an eager smile.

 

“So?” she asked once the other woman had gestured to her that she could come in, “How was yesterday’s date?”

The Irishwoman’s face lit up encouragingly: “Oh, real lovely! I had a lot o’ fun! Kim’s a lovely lad t’ talk to, ya know? Makes me wonder if all dates ‘re like that. Which reminds me -” and she turned serious, “- Stop jammin’ the instrument closet’s door just behind yer recordin’ booth t’ make out with Allison, whenever ye don’t got lines to record. The band needs ‘em t’ play the soundtracks.”

 

The voice actress paled visibly, immediately starting to stutter an excuse: “What- Allison and I, w-we don’t-”

 

“Yes ya do. Kim told me.”

 

“Wh-”

 

“He’s walked in on you two like, four times.”

 

“W-when did he tell-?”

 

“Yesterday. At the date. At one point we ran out of conversation topics ‘n’ he just started snitching on a bunch o’ people, which was honestly the best part of the evening. Together with the grilled salmon. The grilled salmon was great. I can’t believe I never knew ‘bout the Shamrock ’n’ Roll ‘cause the make such a sick-arse grilled salmon. I gotta go back there one time.”

 

The voice actress gave a light cough, trying to recollect her attention and focus it on the main matter: “W-well, was there something else of note? Er, possiby not involving me, or, uh, Allison…”

 

Niamh scratched one of the inky tentacles drawn on her back, pensive. Eventually she snorted, a crooked grin forming on her face, and Susie’s hope to fall on the one particular topic she wanted the specifics for crumbled much like an intricate sandcastle does when meeting the path of a clumsy five story tall hippopotamus’s foot.

 

The staff manager held her in place, already snickering: “Remember three weeks ago, there was that leak that apparently there fucking… _wasn’t?_  Like yeah we had less ink but nobody could figure out  _how_  it had come out?”

“Niamh-”

“D’ ye remember that?”

Susie sighed: “Yes.”

Niamh cackled.

 

“So Kim, he told me, he was goin’ to the loo at that moment, ok? And he got the stairs up to the right floor and he was about t’ go past a corridor and then he’d be there, and he saw Thomas there, Connor, doin’ stuff with a pipe, y’know, mechanic shit ‘n’ all that junk, and at one point-” she giggled, “At one point he heard him stop and say like ‘Oh fuck’, very softly, like he goddamn fuck’d up, and everything was still for a little. And then just-”

The Irishwoman swayed her arms left and right in front of her chest as if attempting to draw half a circle, and began laughing uncontrollably: “-Then the pipe just focken’  _exploded!_  But not even  _properly,_  like you know ink and glass everywhere ‘n’ the whole floor becomin’ a shitty smelly pool, it just focken’  _cracked_  or somethin’ an’ turned into a goddamn  _sprinkler_! An’ Connor was trying to keep it from leakin’ with his big focken’ stupid hands and it just kept goin’ an’ goin’ an’ at one point he just feckin’ started  _cryin’!_  Big strong burly focken’ Thomas Connor  _bawlin’_  his eyes out ‘cause he can’t fix a goddamn pi _hHHHHH-HA HA HA!”_

 

The voice actress patted Niamh’s back, hoping she wouldn’t choke on her own wheezing as she slammed her head on the desk and clutched her stomach still howling in laughter.

 

“ ‘n’ app'rently Polk was-  _hhhhhhh-_  he was at the other end of the f _hhhh-ha ha ha,_ of the damn corridor… Susie, Susie, Susie, please,  _please_ picture it.”

 

“I’m picturing it, Niamh, I’m picturing it, don’t die now.”

 

“Please just… Connor cryin’ like a baby tryin’ to stop an ink sprinkler an’ Kim ‘n’ Norman just s _t_ a _r_ i _n_ ’ a _t_  h _i_ m  _u_ n _f_ o _r_ g _i_ v _i_ n _g_ l _y_  w _i_ t _h_ o _u_ t  _m_ o _v_ i _n_ g  _a_  f _i_ n _g_ e _r_ … Oh, my God, Susie, I think ‘m gonna cry.”

 

“You’re already crying, Niamh.”

 

“ ‘m gonna focken’ cry, Susie!” 

 


End file.
